NEW YORK -- Tucked away in the lobby of a Midtown skyscraper is an elegant oasis that quietly trumpets one of Britain's most enduring and popular exports: Sir Winston Churchill.

Here, at Chartwell Booksellers — "The World's Only Winston Churchill Bookshop" — books by and about the cigar-chomping wartime prime minister play a starring role.

Churchill's finest hour may have been saving Britain (and perhaps the world) from the Nazis, but the great statesman was none too shabby with a pen, either. In 1953, Churchill won the Nobel Prize for Literature, for works including his best-selling six-volume history, The Second World War.

Chartwell's proprietor, Barry Singer, is an affable American who for three decades has specialized in "rare and unusual editions and other marvels of Churchillian ephemera," as the store's catalog puts it.

Many of the first American and English editions of Churchill's 42 books sit behind glass in attractive cases, but the rarest items are hidden away.

Singer disappears for a moment and returns with a folder with several letters signed by Churchill, who died at age 90 in 1965. One is a 1954 thank-you note to the German-language publisher of his war memoirs. "This I think is very amusing. It must have felt really good to write that," says Singer. The price: $4,000.

The store's rarest item goes for a mind-boggling $160,000, although that's "negotiable." It's an intact first-edition of For Free Trade, Churchill's 1906 softcover collection of nine speeches on the topic, considered the "holy grail of Churchill collecting." (Original price, 1 shilling, about 25 cents.)

"It's very delicate, so old and fragile that every time I touch it, it disintegrates a little so I'm very careful," says Singer, as he opens the box holding one of the 12 to 15 known copies in the world.

At Chartwell Booksellers, Winston Churchill reigns. Here's a figurine of Churchill from 1940, on sale as a collectible at the store.(Photo: Todd Plitt USA TODAY)

Despite the lofty price tag on For Free Trade, many of the Churchill books at Chartwell (the 686-square-foot store is named for Churchill's country home) are priced in the more affordable hundreds of dollars. Want to read William Manchester's The Last Lion in hardcover? It's here, as is Martin Gilbert's definitive biography.

"Scarcity and demand" drive prices, says Singer. In a digital world, a rare book is "an increasingly collectible object," he adds.

Anything signed by Churchill "flies" out of the store, and Singer is careful about provenance, because the Internet has "generated an extraordinary amount of Churchill forgeries," he says.

But the Web also has been a boon to his business, bringing him online customers from as far away as Asia, and making the physical store a destination for out-of-town collectors.

Chartwell has attracted high-profile customers since it opened in 1983, including then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Henry Kissinger, the late actor Jason Robards, Chelsea Clinton, director Spike Lee and Caspar Weinberger, when he was Secretary of Defense. Many of Singer's customers, he says, "are rich and powerful men. They really connect with him, in terms of power. They all fancy themselves Churchill in some light."

Johnny Parker, a retired NFL strength and conditioning coach who lives in Florida, is a Churchill fan and collector who buys from Chartwell.

Chartwell's proprietor, Barry Singer, has specialized in "rare and unusual editions and other marvels of Churchillian ephemera" for three decades.(Photo: Todd Plitt USA TODAY)

"One thing I like about Mr. Singer and his store is they have the same respect for Churchill that I do. They seem to feel that they're in the presence of greatness," Parker says, adding that Singer deals in works of "only the finest quality." (Other well-regarded rare book dealers, including Peter Harrington in London and Bauman in New York, also sell Churchill.)

Singer is attracted to Churchill's "humanity," which he set out to capture in his own book, Churchill Style: The Art of Being Winston Churchill (Abrams, 2012). Yes, the store carries it. The book celebrates Churchill's flair for fashion and his passion for painting, cigar-smoking and champagne-drinking.

"People always say, 'Why a Churchill bookstore in New York?' Well, he was half-American. His mother was born in Brooklyn," says Singer, who's also written books on jazz and musical theater.

"Churchill is more popular in America by far than he is in England. Some of that is because he's been heroically lionized here, whereas there they actually dealt with him. They remember that he did a lot right and some things wrong that some people never forgave," he says.

In the 21st century, "the Churchill book industry is a flourishing one. There's never not a new book about some aspect of his life," says Michael Korda, who wrote the foreword to Singer's Churchill Style and is himself an author.

One of the recent books Chartwell carries is Young Titan: The Making of Winston Churchill by Michael Shelden. The rights have been purchased by Carnival Films, the production company behind Downton Abbey.

Some customers who arrive at Chartwell Booksellers may be surprised to find that Churchill and his bulldog scowl do not have complete reign over the store. Singer also offers an impressive inventory of rare and out-of-print hardcover titles, including 20th century American and British literature, plus books on jazz, cooking, sports, interior design and motoring.

"By specializing in World War II and Churchill in particular, Barry has found himself an extraordinary niche," says Korda, a former publishing industry executive. "But Chartwell is also perhaps the last independent bookstore in Midtown Manhattan, which I think first of all is a miracle, and also very valuable."